#ahahaaaa gay romance

[wormtoxin]

Carrion Flowers

Prologue

(yes, under the cut is some long-form original fiction, and yes, i am embarrassed about it, but it’s fine)

When he hears it was through the eye, he remembers that day on the lake.

It’d been cloudy for a week, but the skinny black kid in the dark suit wouldn’t have known the difference. The curtains had been replaced, and the windows and mirrors shrouded in heavy, black cloth. Pictures of his father in his cap and uniform were everywhere, each adorned with a black satin ribbon.

He hated it. The air was getting stale and hot in his lungs, and the black wool suit was suffocating. He didn’t understand back then why he and his mother had to set out white lillies and wear these awful clothes and shut out all the light. The two of them weren’t dead yet.

His mother wasn’t really meant to travel yet- especially not to a friend’s- but she hadn’t been meant to go the cemetery either. Regardless, she had followed the hearse with the men through all of Paris weeks ago, and she would help her son load his black wools and silk into a suitcase now. They both caught an early train out of the city, then a cab, and he was thankful for the sharp, cold smell of green earth and ozone.

When he arrived at the cabin, a woman he didn’t recognize threw open the door. She wore another black dress, like his mother’s, and they kissed each other on each cheek.

“Madame Stein, my love, je suis désolé,” she said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Since the funeral, he had seen many of his mother’s friends, but each carried the cold pity of a mourner, veiled beneath formality. With this woman, whoever she was, there was an instant connection. He saw his mother light up with warmth and comfort, and felt himself warmed along with her. His mother pulled him from behind her skirts and introduced him.

“Madame Hyde, c’est Jacque”, she said, and the other woman bent down to hold him tight.

“You’re so grown,” she said, “I haven’t seen you since you were in your cradle”. She stood, and a young boy, about Jacque’s age, emerged from the cabin behind her. He held a hand out for Jacque.

“Je m’appelle Cyrus!” He grinned broadly.

Jacque took his hand and shook it, “One of your teeth is gone”. Cyrus took his other hand out of his pocket, and placed the milk-white baby tooth in Jacque’s open palm.

“I was gonna leave it for the tooth fairy, but I want you to have it!” Mme. Hyde rolled her eyes, and Jacque’s mother stifled a laugh.

“Thanks,” Jacque said, and pocketed it.

“Shall we?” Mme. Hyde said, and stepped into the cabin. The hearth was roaring, and something must’ve been cooking in the heavy iron pot, because the smell was incredible. Jacque and his mother unpacked, and the first night, the two women made apple pie together. Jacque’s mother was rolling the pastry and the butter together when she started to cry, and she cried for a long time while Mme. Hyde held onto her. The butter melted out of the pastry, but they all ate the sweet, buttered, cinnamon apples out of a great wooden bowl, and his mother slept through the whole night for the first time since they’d gotten the news.

It was still raining the next day, so the two Madames sat by the hearth and stitched old clothes while the boys ate porridge.

“Mom, I want to show Jack the lake”.

“Alright dear, but take an umbrella, and lend Jacque your boots. It’s still muddy out”.

Cyrus took Jacque by the arm, and they set out together in the rain. Jacque held the umbrella while Cyrus talked excitedly about the games he’d play at the schoolyard, or facts he’d read about in books.

“Did you know? Sometimes a dragon isn’t actually a dragon, so instead they’re called wyverns,” Cyrus said “Weye-verrns” with the distinctive lull of an English accent, and Jacque wondered how long it’d been since he came to Paris. “They’re only called Dragons if they can breathe fire, and then they’re called ‘True’ Dragons, which I guess makes all the other ones ‘Liar-liar-pants-on-fire’ Dragons”.

“It’s not fire,” Jacque said beneath the hood of his black cloak, “Papa said it’s called ‘radiation’. They call it Wildfire because it spreads”.

Cyrus was dumbstruck. “Wow!! Really?? You must be so smart, Jacque!” Jacque had been praised a lot in the last few weeks by the mourners, but always because he was So brave or So strong or The man of the house now in a way that felt like You poor thing. It was nice to hear smart for a change.

When they got to the lake, it looked so high from the rain that Jacque thought it might spill over. Thick trees blanketed the banks from the rain, allowing only a few heavy drops to spill over onto the moss or the water, each creating a soft plonk.

“It’s pretty,” Jacque said.

“Have you ever skipped a stone before?”

“Um, no”.

Cyrus sorted through the mud for a while before finding a smooth flat stone, and tossed it into the clear water. Instead of sinking, it touched the water and flew, hopping three or four times before finally dropping down into the lake.

“Amazing!” Jacque picked one up and threw it, but it only made a splash. Without a word, Cyrus found another skipping stone, and put it in Jacque’s hand. He held Jacque’s wrist and moved the rock between his forefinger and thumb. Even at his school, Jacque didn’t often touch hands with the other students. They’d throw balls or play hopskotch. And of course, Jacque’s mother held his hand often, to cross the railway or walk to the store, or just to comfort him. But Cyrus’ hands were small like his own, warm, and rough from years of scrabbling up trees or over brambles.

“You have to throw it like this”.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Jacque asked, “You just feel bad for me like everyone else”. Jacque pulled his hand away, and threw another rock straight beneath the surface.

Cyrus picked up another for him. “Am not,” he said, “Momma said you need some cheering up, s’all”.

“You do feel bad for me!” Jacque threw it, and again it failed to soar like the first one did.

“Do not!” Again, Cyrus put a flat, muddy rock in Jacque’s light palm. “And I know you’re sad. What’s wrong with feeling bad for you, anyways?”.

“Am not!” Jacque threw it, hard, but it missed the water altogether, clacking against a big rock on the shore, and ricocheting out towards the boys.

Jacque found himself crying. Hot, wet tears spilled down his cheeks, and he found his breath coming out in little hitching gasps before he knew why. Jacque wasn’t sad. He missed his dad, of course, and he wished his mom wouldn’t cry. But he wasn’t sad. So what was he feeling now?

Cyrus sat next to him in the mud. When Jacque looked up, he realized the rock had hit Cyrus, cutting his eyebrow. Blood streaked down his cheekbone, and his eye had already purpled and swollen shut. Even still, he smiled. Cyrus’ grin was so wide, it showed his gap tooth and curled his other eye up in delight.

“What?” Jacque muttered.

“When my papa died,” Cyrus said, “everybody told me I had to be big and strong for my momma. It took me a long time to cry. I thought I was dead too, because he was. But I felt better when I cried.”

Jacque laughed a little, sniffling. “You wanted to make me cry?”

Cyrus took the sleeve of his coat, and wiped one of Jacque’s tears. As they sat together, and Jacque finished crying, a cloud finally broke. Sunlight reflected from the shimmering surface of the lake. Cyrus’ hair and eye were dark, but in the light, Jacque saw their fiery warmth, each eyelash shining gold. Jacque felt the sun move over him, heating him to the bones.

That was when he first fell in love, Jacque thinks.

Years later, when a dragon had flown too close to Paris, the military police shot it down over the lake. The water was ruined, along with the rest of the countryside, and a few years after that, Cyrus joined the Dragon Corps. Jacque went to University, but they still saw each other often. Cyrus would sneak out of the barracks to visit, and to tell Jacque stories about the latest thing he had seen, or the place he had just been. Cyrus would tell him about being stationed in Italy. Verona had huge open-air cemeteries, he would say. You’re studying cemeteries, aren’t you, Cyrus would ask. I’ll take you someday, he’d promise. Now, this morning, his picture was in the newspaper.

It was through the eye, the newspaper said. That same eye Jacque had hit with his skipping stone, and that bore a mark on its brow from that day at the lake. That eye that shone gold in the sunlight, and that peeked out at Jacque, only Jacque, with a wry delight from beneath the military cap, making his chest ache.

It went through that eye, and lodged itself somewhere in the back of his skull. Jacque keeps rereading it, looking back at that picture. He must be reading it wrong. He feels dizzy, keeps expecting the words to change as they spin, but each time they stubbornly refuse. Pronounced dead at 4:32 this morning. Jacque doesn’t know what to do. Then, all at once, he does.